Tan Cheng Bock to challenge High Court ruling on upcoming reserved Presidential Election

SINGAPORE — Former presidential candidate Dr Tan Cheng Bock will appeal against the High Court’s dismissal of his legal challenge over the upcoming reserved Presidential Election (PE).

“Yes, appealing through my lawyers today (Wednesday, July 12),” he said on Wednesday in a brief reply to TODAY via his spokesman.

In a Facebook post later, Dr Tan wrote: “The appeal is likely to be heard on the week of July 25, 2017. The Court of Appeal will sit in open court. The appeal timelines were agreed beforehand between the AG and ourselves so that the case will not affect the Presidential elections in September 2017.”

He added that he also appreciated the fact that Justice Quentin Loh and the High Court “have done everything possible to enable this case to be heard swiftly”.

A Supreme Court spokesperson confirmed that Dr Tan had filed “a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal” arising from the High Court’s decision.

“A date for the hearing of the appeal will be fixed in due course,” the spokesperson said.

Separately, a spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s Chambers said: “AGC will study the papers.”

Last Friday, the High Court dismissed the legal challenge that Dr Tan had launched against the AGC over the timing for the reserved presidential election.

In November last year, various changes to the Elected Presidency (EP) scheme were passed in Parliament, including instituting a mechanism that reserves an election for a particular ethnicity that has not had an elected representative for five consecutive terms.

The Government, on the AGC’s advice, started counting the five terms from Dr Wee Kim Wee’s presidency, forming the basis for the Government to trigger a reserved election for Malay candidates in the presidential polls in September.

Filing his legal challenge in May, Dr Tan had taken issue with the AGC’s findings that Dr Wee was Singapore’s first elected President.

The late Dr Wee was the first President to exercise powers under the EP scheme, after it was introduced in 1991 while he was in office.

Dr Tan, however, argued that the count should start with Mr Ong Teng Cheong, Dr Wee’s successor, making it four terms since the Republic has had an elected Malay President. 

Singapore has not had a Malay President since its first — Mr Yusof Ishak — died in office in 1970.